Do African manufacturing firms learn from exporting?

Type Working Paper
Title Do African manufacturing firms learn from exporting?
Author(s)
Volume WPS/2002
Issue 9
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2002
URL http://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/workingpapers/wps-list.html#2001
Abstract
In this paper, we use firm-level panel data for the manufacturing sector in four African countries to estimate the effect of exporting on efficiency. Estimating simultaneously a production function and an export regression that control for unobserved firm effects, we find both
significant efficiency gains from exporting, supporting the learning-by-exporting hypothesis, and evidence for self-selection of more efficient firms into exporting. The evidence of learning-by-exporting suggests that Africa has much to gain from orientating its manufacturing sector towards exporting.

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